You have a few great clients that you love and you know you’re providing excellent services. But right now you’re not getting consistent leads into your business so you’re on a roller coaster of up and down income.
One of the easiest traps to fall into when you’re a service-based business is to rely on referrals only. While referrals can bring you some of the best-fit clients, you can’t control how consistently they come in.
Where do you find people online that want to work with you?
Take control of your leads and get the right people to your business – all with online strategies.
Let’s break down some of the best ways to get out of your box and get people to your business – consistently.
Make Sure You Know Your Customer
Before you can use any of the strategies we’re about to dive into, you want to make sure that you’re crystal clear on who you want to work with.
What does your dream customer look like?
Three important things to consider when looking to talk to your dream clients are knowing:
- What their goals are
- What they’re trying to achieve
- What problem they’re trying to solve
A great way to narrow this down is to create a buyer persona, which I covered in more detail in episode 49.
When you can speak directly to their wants and needs, you’ll find it easier to draw them into working with you.
Places to Find Leads Online
The reason you have an online business is because you want to get clients online, in places all over the world.
How can you get leads when you’re up against so much competition?
Let’s dive into six fool-proof methods!
Convert Them on Your Website
When someone finds you on social media, gets referred to you, or does a Google search and finds you – what do they see?
Hopefully, they see a website that demonstrates that you are the perfect person to help them solve their problems.
With all of the other lead-generating ideas we’re going to cover, this is the most important. If you’re not ensuring that your foundation (your website) is ready to not only bring in leads but convert them when they land there, you’re going to be missing out.
This includes using their lingo instead of your technical jargon, focusing on the benefits of the services you provide, and making it super simple to connect and work with you.
If you want the full list of how to get more leads from your website, make sure you grab my free guide.
Build an Email List
What’s one of the most powerful ways to build a relationship with colder leads and warm them up to buy from you?
Email marketing.
When someone lets you into their inbox, that means they’ve trusted you with a very personal space. You reward that by sending them something regularly – weekly or monthly – to keep that relationship growing.
The worst thing you can do is to get someone on your email list and only send them sporadic emails. They won’t remember who you are at all.
Not every email should be sales-focused, but it’s OK to send out some sales emails every once in a while.
Now, before you tell me that this doesn’t work: email marketing has an incredible ROI. We’re talking $36 return for every $1 you spend, or a 3,600% ROI to be precise.
Why is that? Well, your email list is your warmest audience. They’re going to be the most primed to buy from you when you have an offer and the most receptive to what you’re saying.
Don’t ignore it.
Create Regular, High-Quality Content
Want to stay in front of your ideal audience? Give them a reason to come back into your orbit every week with regular, high-quality content.
One of my favorite ways to do that is through a weekly blog that I turn into a podcast episode (you know, what you’re reading now). It’s easier for me to start from something I write and then go from there, but it might be better for you to record a podcast episode or a video series for YouTube and then turn that into a blog using some AI tools.
With blog posts and longer-form content like podcasts, you’re able to address common challenges for your audience and give them some simple solutions.
You don’t want to give away entire strategies for free, but you do want to get them to understand a bit more about their problems and perhaps provide some quick wins.
This also helps to establish yourself as a thought leader in your field, giving you a bit more online cache as you build your business.
Guest on Others’ Podcasts
Want to drive people to your marketing channels from other sources? A great way to do that is to get outside of your channels!
Podcast interviews, live show guest appearances, even guest blogs, and writing on places like Medium or for bigger online publications can help you spread the word about your business.
Third-party publishing of your expertise and your content not only lends credibility to what you’re saying but also provides you with a bigger platform to bring people back to you and into your channels.
You can start applying to guest on other podcasts a bit more easily through services like Matchmaker.FM or doing some networking in online groups.
Make sure you’re applying to podcasts where their audience matches up to who you’d like to reach and have some kind of freebie available for them to find more information about you.
Facebook/Online Groups
Want to know probably my biggest revenue earners in years past? Facebook groups!
I’m not even kidding!
I joined a few Facebook groups where my peers and my target market spend their time. Not only are there typically #jobopp posts that you can apply directly to (which are great), but it’s a great way to build up relationships with your target audience virtually.
Don’t jump into a group and immediately start selling your services. Most have rules against that anyway, but it’s an immediate turn-off. Instead, get involved in the conversations! Lend your expertise when other members ask questions, offer free advice, or simply engage. The members will get used to seeing your name so that when someone is looking for someone like you, you’ve already got some trust going.
Keep an eye on the posts asking for paid help, too. By responding to just a handful of those, I’ve gained some amazing clients. And all I did was engage and respond when someone said they were looking for help.
Digital Ads
If you want to accelerate your digital marketing and where you get seen, there’s no better way to do that than through digital ads.
Ad channels like Google Ads (search, display, and YouTube), Facebook & Instagram, TikTok, and more give you the ability to drill down and target your ideal customer and ensure that they see your message. Google Ads typically give you a 2:1 return, but it’s more about bringing new people into your fold than getting that immediate sale.
You’ll of course want to focus on ad channels that you think your ideal customer is already spending their time, so keep that in mind.
This takes a budget, but you can start small on Facebook and Instagram ads, dial in your messaging, and then take some of those earnings and funnel that budget to Google Ads and beyond.
Get Leads, Make Your Life Easier
Are you tired of constantly worrying about where that next customer is going to come in from? Not knowing if you have enough work yet to hire someone to help you out?
If the answer is yes, what you’re missing out on is getting the right kinds of leads into your business – consistently.
There are a ton of ways to drive leads and it will take some experimentation to find out which one works best for you and your business, but the key here is to try something different and build the right foundation.
Security is possible in your online business.
